


Hold On For Me (Don't Go)

by iCarly1969



Series: The Great Maze Challenge / Competition [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:30:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2514401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iCarly1969/pseuds/iCarly1969
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He met her eyes in the mirror. / "Hi, Poppy," he croaked. / He looked different. / He had less hair, for one. He also had eyebags. / The most obvious difference was his expression, though. / He had stopped smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold On For Me (Don't Go)

**Author's Note:**

> Entry #11 for The Great Maze Challenge / Competition: You find a piece of paper on the ground with the word [betrayal]. Cool. Someone's sick and throwing up in the maze. Use your healer knowledge to heal someone who's sick.
> 
> [Assuming that Madam Pomfrey was a half-blood of the Selwyn family.]

Poppy was an inconspicuous person, especially in school. She was a Ravenclaw to the core, preferring to spend all her spare time in the library as opposed to the common room.

During Christmas the first year, she had went back home, brimming with excitement and full of stories to tell her friend.

She hadn't been able to find him at the playground or at the school, so she went to his house.

His mother had opened the door, saw her, glared at her and shut it in her face, muttering something about 'bloody witches and their curses'.

Undeterred, she climbed the tree next to the house and climbed into his bedroom from there.

"Cyrus?" she called, looking under the bed like she used to when they played hide and seek.

She heard the retching sound as she was looking through the wardrobe.

Immediately, she closed the door and went to the toilet, opening it to see her friend throwing up into the toilet bowl. She was rooted to the spot as he heaved yet again before straightening up and stumbling to the wash basin to splash his face with water.

He met her eyes in the mirror.

"Hi, Poppy," he croaked.

He looked different.

He had less hair, for one. He also had eyebags.

The most obvious difference was his expression, though.

He had stopped smiling.

"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.

He smiled a little at her, although she could see that he was no longer used to the expression.

"I don't know," he replied.

She went to hug him. He was so much skinnier than she remembered.

"Have you been eating right?"

"I eat as much as I used to, Poppy. You're sounding like my mother."

There. That sounds like the Cyrus she used to know.

"Then what happened?"

"I really don't know. It was a few weeks after you left, when I started throwing up almost everything I eat."

"It could be that my absence made you sick?" she joked weakly, all while trying to see if the symptoms sound like something she had read about. A glance at the toilet bowl revealed that there was blood in the vomit.

She looked at him, alarmed. "You've been throwing up blood, too?"

He looked at the door. "I know that's not supposed to happen, but…"

"Come with me," she urged, tugging him along, going towards the window.

"Where are we going?" He put up barely the token resistance that was expected of him.

"I'm going to try and make some blood-replenishing potion, and possibly some of that nausea potion my potions teacher had told me I could try over the holidays."

"Potions?" he squawked as she climbed down the tree.

From the ground, she shushed him. "Keep your volume down, you're mother doesn't like me for some reason and she cannot know that I am actually a witch."

As he clambered down, she was worried for a moment as he almost lost his balance quite a few times.

"Are you really going to make potions?"

"They said that magic was not allowed, but no one said anything about brewing potions, so I would be doing that."

"Can I watch?" he whispered excitedly as they made their way to her room.

"Why do you think I brought you here?"

They made a little progress over that holiday, with him gradually gaining back some weight and looking a little healthier, before she had to go back to Hogwarts.

"Stay well, alright? I'll send you what I could," she had told him before going back to Hogwarts.

He gave her that half-smile of his, the most he could do for the entire holiday, as he promised that he would hold on for her.

Through out school term, she read through every medical book there was in the library to look for a cure.

She learnt a lot. Just, nothing that could help her with him.

As summer holidays neared, Poppy grew progressively worried. She had sent him potions whenever she could, sometimes with new concoctions the books suggested and they always came back empty with a letter attached to them (she had explained that owls deliver letters for wizards and witches, which he had accepted with a wide-eyed look). The letters became shorter and shorter, though.

His handwriting was also progressively messier, and they spoke less on how things were going on out there, instead, telling her to let her owl know to come only at night, and how his mother seemed to be hiding something from him.

The most recent owl she sent returned without a letter.

The first thing she did when she went back was to go to his house, opting to go directly through the window route.

He was asleep, in the middle of the day.

His mother was there, too, holding his hand and looking as if she had not slept for weeks.

She looked up and saw Poppy. Her expression changed to fury as she stood up from the chair and marched towards the window.

"Witch," she hissed, picking up the quill laying by Cyrus' bed. "Cursed child. Begone!"

She tried to stab Poppy with the sharp end of the quill.

Startled, she scooted backwards and almost lost her balance.

Cyrus' mother slammed the window shut and drew the curtains shut.

She sat there, unable to forget his gaunt face.

How sick was he, really?

The next time she went there, the tree was gone. She tried to climb the walls with a sticking charm. His mother was still sitting there, although this time, she never saw her.

She tried to approach him many time, throughout the summer, but his mother was always there.

On the last day before school, she finally managed to get him alone and awake.

"Hey," he said weakly.

"Hey," she whispered back, taking his hand.

"Still throwing up?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "Your potions help, but they're no longer working as well," he continued. She could see him make an effort to smile at her.

For her.

It made her throat go dry, for some reason.

She really tried, going as far as asking her grandmother for books different illnesses and how to treat them, even though she knew that her grandmother hated her for being 'tainted', scorning her other for not being true to the Selwyn name and marrying a muggle born instead. She got a few curt replies and a few books, and that was it.

No matter how many potions she fed him, he only got better for a while before getting worse.

She had not wanted to go back to Hogwarts, she wanted to stay and help him, but she knew that there was nothing more she could do.

And when he passed on during Christmas Eve when they were thirteen, no one needed to know that she was there during his last moments while everyone else was celebrating.

No one needed to know that she had mourned for him in her room, silently swearing that her life will be henceforth dedicated to the medicinal profession. She promised herself that no one, no matter who they are, will not die in her care again as long as she was able to do anything to save them.

And no one needed to know why she always spend Christmas Eve beside a small little tomb stone in a village no one has heard of, talking about her career and all the patients she had met in the past year.

**Author's Note:**

> Poppy first met Cyrus when she was four.  
> According to her mother, the first thing the boy had said to her was "Why did you take my teddy bear?" and her reply was "She's hurt!"  
> She was not quite sure if that was the truth, but she liked to believe that it was. It was sweet, and something she was liable to do at that age.  
> They spent the next seven years playing together, since no one else in the town was willing to be her friend. They said that she was a witch, as if it was an insult. She had not quite understood why, since she was actually a witch, but Cyrus was the only one who came back to play with her even though everyone else told him not to.  
> When she went off to Hogwarts at eleven, he had smiled and told her that he always knew that there was something different about her.  
> She had never thought that that would be the last time she would see him smile like that.  
> That the next time she saw him smile that way, it would be Christmas Eve, and he would be seconds away from death.


End file.
